I'm Off To See The Wizard!

Holy cow...tomorrow's the big day! Excuse the haste in this post, but I want to get caught up with all of this.

The Test
I cannot believe that I left out the punch-line in my last post, regarding the psychological test my doctor gave me! Once the 9 question test was completed, he hit a few buttons, and the computer came up with my results:

"Moderately Depressed"

Boy, was I ever disappointed!

But I don't want get too harsh with this doctor, he was just doing his job the way he is supposed to do. I have learned a long time ago that psychological treatment is best handled by psychologists and psychiatrists.

The Surgeon - Stacey and I met the surgeon a couple of weeks ago and had a pretty intense hour-long meeting with him. He explained everything, and as I have quickly found out, doctors and surgeons like spending a lot of time explaining what can go wrong. I suppose they have to, and that's fine, but he was also very optimistic about my outcome due to these 3 things:
1. I'm healthy (except for the cancer, of course..).
2. I'm relatively young.
3. I'm "skinny" (which should come in handy for my bladder control getting back to normal - less weight pushing down on my newly remodeled bladder sphincter).

I made it clear that my priorities are this:
1. To live.
2. Bladder control.
3. The erection thing.

The nerves that control erections are on both sides of the prostate gland. If the gland is smooth and clean, his chances are much better to be able to spare those nerves. If there are cancer cells outside and on the gland, the nerves could be "stuck" to the gland making the job much more difficult. Another factor is this thing called margins. I think that means if the cancer cells are very close to the wall of the gland, there could be problems sparing those nerves.

He spent a lot of time on this, and I tried to tell him that the erection thing really isn't a huge priority with me, but he insisted, telling me that he's actually seen marriages end and men becoming very depressed if there's no more boners.

If those nerves go bye-bye, there are many options that can help get those erections back. The most unsettling one has got to be self injections directly into the penis! "It really doesn't hurt".

Stacey and were both impressed with this guy, and I feel like I'm in good hands. He knows his way around the Da Vinci, and he's younger than I am, which my brother says is a good thing - probably has more experience than someone my age with video games!

The Love
I have been overwhelmed with good wishes ever since I went public with this. Family, friends, musicians, acquaintances, not so friendly friends, people I haven't spoken to in 35 years, and complete strangers have taken the time and effort to wish me well. I cannot believe how fortunate I am to be loved by so many. I thank you all - it is really helping me get through something that I was programmed most of my life to believe would be the absolute worst thing that could ever happen to me.

Boy, was I wrong.

I love you all.

Gil